


we’re going on a bear hunt

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 20:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17049803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: A sequel to should auld acquaintance be forgot?; the Doctor runs into Rose the year before they met and helps her find a couple of unusual things: a bear and a wedding dress. | Written for/winner of Challenge 52 at then_theres_us on LJ many moons ago.





	we’re going on a bear hunt

“Enjoy yourselves, stay out of trouble, and steer clear of the sea prunes,” the Doctor said solemnly as Amy zipped up her jacket and Rory knotted his scarf. “Psychic paper?”

“Check,” Amy said, flourishing it.

“Mobiles?”

“Check,” Rory said with a smile. “Doctor, we _have_ been on a date before.”

“On the lunar base of the Shining Nebula?” 

“…Okay, you’ve got me there.”

“You said it wasn’t all that different from San Francisco,” Amy said.

“Well, yes and no. San Francisco doesn’t have as many Plurapods in its Chinatown.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor,” Amy said, grinning at his paternal concern. “We’ll be good, we’ll be careful, and we’ll call you if we need you. Otherwise, see you in a couple hours.” She leaned in to kiss his cheek before grabbing Rory’s hand.

“Keep your gloves and scarves on!” the Doctor called after them. “The wind can be brutal this time of year!”

He watched them disappear into the crowd of gaily dressed (and multi-colored) tourists, spared a moment to look up at the magnificent and glittering starliners docked hundreds of feet above the wharf, and finally closed the door with a sigh.

“Just you and me tonight, sweetie,” he said into the peaceful silence. There was a soft, pleased hum from the general vicinity of the engines. “…Sweetie?” he repeated to himself. “River’s beginning to rub off on me… So, what should we do tonight, hmm? We could finish organizing the library according to the Dewey decimal system? We could clean out the wardrobe and sift the mothballs out of the swimming pool?”

He flopped down, arms and legs akimbo, onto one of the upholstered benches against the railing. Several minutes of pregnant silence passed.

“Alright then,” he said quietly. “Surprise me. Take me somewhere nice, familiar, fun—somewhere that’ll take my mind off things.”

Lights began to blink, knobs began to turn and spin, and the engines thundered into life. A moment later, there was only a slight breeze and an echoing _vworp vworp vworp_ that lingered on the busy docks.

\---

“Early two thousand and…” He twisted his arm to examine the heavy gold watch. “Four? Looks like London, judging by the fashions, the level of air pollution, and that McDonald’s. Any particular reason for this spot?”

The TARDIS was silent behind him. 

He shrugged, closed the door firmly, and set off down the street with his hands in his pockets.

He wasn’t far from the Powell Estate, he realized, as he stopped in front of a slightly shabby secondhand store. He’d been here before, right as this very shop, with Rose. It had been Halloween, and she’d been looking for a wig; she’d gotten it into her head that they should go to a party dressed as Han Solo and Princess Leia. They found the perfect black vest here for his costume, but no sooner had they dressed up and set off for the party when they found themselves running down a back alley, dodging plasma blasts from an intergalactic pirate they’d recently foiled. Needless to say, by the time all of _that_ had been handled, it was far too late for any formal partying and their costumes had ended up tossed across the floor on their way to her bedroom—

He stopped the memory there. That was the sort of memory best cherished in privacy, not on a random sidewalk in the open. And anyway Rose Tyler was—

“John?”

He swiveled sharply on his heel, his eyes going wide with surprise. She was standing there in the pink Punky Fish jacket he remembered so well, the jacket that was still hanging in the TARDIS just down the street. “Rose?”

“It _is_ you!” And she was walking quickly towards him, a huge smile bursting unchecked across her face. “I saw the tweed jacket and I thought, ‘I’ve only met one bloke who would ever wear that.’ Wondered for a moment if you’d remember me, but I couldn’t just walk past without knowin’. How are you?”

“Good, good,” he managed to say a bit breathlessly as she hugged him. It was a friendly hug, the sort she must give to everyone she knew—it wasn’t _quite_ like the hugs she used to (would) give him, which felt deeper and softer and a bit more… personal. But it was a hug from Rose Tyler, and he was damn well going to savor it. “And yourself?”

“Oh, alright, I s’pose. Actually… What are you doin’ right now?”

“Strolling, meandering, indulging in some wanderlust, letting my feet take me where they will,” he said breezily. “Why, what did you have in mind?”

“This’ll probably sound really childish to you, but I’m in the middle of this scavenger hunt,” she said with a laugh. “Some mates thought it up—we all have to find weird things off this list, yeah? And whoever finds everything first gets the money.”

“Money? You haven’t been _gambling_ have you, Miss Tyler?” he asked in a mock reproving tone.

“Nothing like that!” she said defensively. “We all just chipped in five quid to play, and the winner gets the pot.”

“And…”

“Well, do you wanna help me? I’ve still got two things left to find. I mean, if you’re not busy or anything…”

He looked at her, really looked at her, taking in the youthful enthusiasm and the rosy flush the breeze painted on her cheeks and the way her hair swirled around her face like the golden halos the very old painters made on religious iconography. He’d met dozens of gods — hundreds of their ilk — and those words he had shouted into the face of the Devil still rang with truth: he didn’t believe in much when it came to religion, but he would _always_ believe in _her_.

“It just so happens, Rose Tyler, that I have the entire afternoon free,” he grinned, holding out a hand with a theatrical flourish. “What is it we are questing for?”

She took his hand without a moment’s hesitation. “I need a bear.”

“To the zoo!”

“No, John,” she laughed. “A _teddy_ bear.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course. How silly of me. My mind must have been wandering. This looks like a likely place to find just such a beastie, don’t you think?” He nodded at the secondhand shop. “You can find just about anything in a shop like this, excepting—perhaps—a hypersonic treble waveform with reversed neutron polarity.”

“You talk like you’ve just escaped from the loony bin,” Rose said as they stepped inside, the sleigh bells on the door jangling loudly. 

While it was true that you could find just about anything in a secondhand shop, the problem was staying focused long enough to find it in the first place. They’d been in the shop for less than five minutes before Rose was pulling silly hats over his head, laughing at his expressions when he examined each new style in the cracked full-length mirror next to the dressing room. 

“Sombreros suit me, don’t you think?” he asked with a lop-sided smile. 

“They make your ears look like teacup handles,” she said candidly with a giggle. 

“Oh, they do not!” he said defensively. “These are quite nice ears—one of the best pairs I’ve ever had, I’d say.”

“You say some of the silliest, most impossible things,” Rose said. “Here, how about this?”

“A fez!” he crowed with delight, snatching it out of her hand and flinging the sombrero away without a second thought. The giant straw hat skimmed over the racks of clothes like a low-flying UFO and ricocheted off a rack of shoes. “Brilliant, I love fezzes!”

“All you need now is an elephant,” she joked.

“Elephants. Tigers. Bears! We were supposed to be looking for a bear!” the Doctor remembered suddenly. “Quick, before all the best ones are gone!”

“Here’re the toys! Aw, someone got rid of their Raggedy Ann doll—I’ve still got mine at home,” Rose said with a fond smile, smoothing out the doll’s wrinkled and yellowed apron. “I could never get rid of it.”

“Blimey, how many action figures that turn into other things do boys need?” the Doctor demanded, holding up a handful of complicated and broken Transformers. 

“What, you never had one of these? A robot that turned into a spaceship or something?”

“Well…” _I’ve got a spaceship that could—potentially, if I were to fix the Circuit, or if it was really so inclined—turn into just about anything in the universe._ Instead, he simply said, “Not really. Aha! A bear! Madame?”

“Only one eye, but it’ll do,” she said, pulling out her mobile to snap a picture and send it to the other scavengers. 

“What’s left then, eh?” 

“…A wedding dress. That should be easy. Any white dress should count, really.”

After ten minutes of rummaging through wire and plastic hangers…

“Oh my goodness. You actually _wear_ this?”

“That much lace? I’d rather burn it. And look at the _sleeves_.”

“On the plus side, if you were wearing this and found yourself floating in the ocean miles from any land, you could almost certainly turn it into a flotation device.”

“D’you think this would count? It’s pink, but it’s not half bad.”

“I bet your friends would argue that a wedding dress has to be white,” the Doctor said reasonably.

“Why white, though?” Rose complained, holding out the dress. It was quite pretty, made of pale pink fabric with an empire waist. The material across the chest was of a different pattern from the skirt, the colour of cream interspersed with tiny drawings of rosebuds. Something about it put him in mind of rolling farmlands in spring, and he could easily see Rose in it, flowers and sunlight woven through her hair. “I don’t think I’d want to wear white for my wedding. It’s too plain. Something like this would be nice.”

He forced away the images that had sprung unbidden into his mind. Rose — older and a bit sharper — on a world like this one but not quite, standing at a daisy-festooned altar beside a man who looked like him a lifetime ago. She’d be wearing a pink dress like this one, with baby’s breath in her bouquet, and he’d be in a slim black suit with a white rose at his lapel…

“John? Are you okay?”

“What?”

“You looked… Sad.”

“Oh, no, no, it was nothing. That’s a very nice dress—maybe you should try it on?”

“You think so?” Rose asked thoughtfully, holding it up to the light. 

A minute later:

“I can’t believe this.”

“What?”

“There isn’t a mirror in here! I got completely changed before I realized there’s no mirror.”

“There’s one out here,” he pointed out helpfully.

“Well… Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Why would I laugh?”

“Because I’m not the sort of girl who looks good in dresses.”

Oh, he begged to differ on _that_ point. She looked absolutely _fantastic_ in dresses from just about any time period — he knew that from experience. 

And sure enough, when she stepped out of the dressing room not even the white socks that peeked out from beneath the skirt could detract from the lovely picture she presented him with. 

“Well? What d’ya think?”

“I think…” he managed to say after a gulp. “I think you look _incredible_.”

“Really?” she blushed, glancing at her reflection. “It doesn’t look like… I’m playing dress-up?”

“No, not at all, you look lovely.”

“You’re looking at me in a very peculiar way, John,” she said, catching his eyes in the mirror. She looked over one pale shoulder with a particular smile, the tip of her tongue peeking at the corner. 

“How so?”

“Like the wolf in all of those fairy tales. The one with big eyes and big teeth, big enough to eat curious girls up.”

“I think it’s the other way around, really,” the Doctor said as she stepped toward him.

“How so?” she echoed him, reaching up to straighten his bowtie.

“I think _you_ look like you want to—”

“John?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you always talk so much?”

She was kissing him like she’d kissed him at New Years, kissing him in a pink dress she didn’t own, kissing him as the fez slipped off his head and rolled across the floor. Her fingers were hot against his shoulder and neck, and he couldn’t resist brushing the line of her jaw with his thumb. She shivered at the caress, and he smiled against her lips.

“That was… nice,” she murmured when they parted, both breathless and flushed. 

“Mmm.”

“I think I’m gonna get the dress. Seems to be lucky, don’t you agree?”

“Mmm.”

“And I’ll get that fez for you, too,” she laughed, reaching down to pick it up. “My treat. Least I can do, after a kiss like that.”

\---

A half hour later, they were strolling down the street, a bag over her arm, the fez on his head, and a pair of dribbly ice cream cones in their hands.

“I bet you think I’m too forward, don’t you?” Rose asked nonchalantly, licking her cone.

“No, I don’t,” he said sincerely.

“Really? So you’re used to girls throwin’ themselves at you, then? I mean, I can see _why_ , when you snog like _that_ …” She grinned at his flustered expression and slipped her free arm through his. “I’m just teasing you!”

“I _don’t_ think you’re too forward,” he asserted. “I just think you’re… Rose.”

“Makes it sound like I’m above the law or something,” she laughed.

“In a way, I think you are,” he said seriously. 

“What’s your last name, John? I don’t think I caught it last time.”

“Smith,” he said.

“Really? Your name’s John Smith?”

“Yep.”

“Sounds like an alias,” Rose said lightly. “Like a codename a spy would have.”

“Blast, you’ve figured me out. There goes national security.”

She laughed loudly at that, and his heart seemed to swell and grow with the sound. “Well, John Smith, I just want you to know that I’m not the sort of girl who snogs strangers.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“I mean, _technically_ I suppose _you’re_ a stranger,” she said slowly. “But… You don’t feel like one. Why is that?”

“Couldn’t say,” he said calmly, biting into his ice cream and regretting it when his entire tongue went numb. 

“It’s funny. Some people I’ve known my whole life, like Mickey and Sherine—and I don’t feel half as comfortable with them as I do with you. When I saw you today, I felt this huge surge of… Excitement? I was just so happy to see you. And I barely know you. So why do I feel like I’ve known you forever?”

It was a moment before his mouth had thawed enough to speak, and when he could he wasn’t quite sure what to say. They’d reached a small fenced-in park; there was a sandbox and a couple of children playing on a squeaky set of see-saws while their mothers chatted on a nearby bench. 

“You know how people say there are ‘old souls’?” the Doctor said.

“Sure,” Rose said lightly, meeting his eyes steadily. _I bet you have an old soul,_ she thought to herself, looking into eyes that shouldn’t possibly have that much depth. 

“And the concept of ‘soulmates’?”

“Yeah?” For some reason her heart was beginning to skip beats. There was the sense that something huge and hidden loomed before her, like an iceberg, and she had the oddest urge to throw herself upon it. Why did she feel and think such strange things around this man? What was it about him that made her want to be reckless and free and forget everything trivial in her life?

“Maybe it’s a combination of that. Souls that knew each other, that will know each other, that have _always_ known each other. Maybe there are bonds out there — relationships, friendships — that could never be broken for long. The souls call out to one another, and people find each other over and over again despite time and distance.”

“I like that,” she said finally after mulling it over. “That makes sense to me. Maybe we knew each other in a past life, yeah?”

“Maybe,” he smiled.

“I think you’re the most unusual bloke I’ve ever met,” Rose said. “Most guys don’t think the way you do—and if they do, they never talk about it.”

“I’ve been told I’m an odd duck,” the Doctor said with a smile.

“I like that about you.”

“You’re a very singular girl yourself, Rose Tyler.”

“Me? No, I’m not.” She sighed heavily, leaning back against the black metal of the fence. “I’m as everyday and ordinary as they come. Live with my Mum, work in a shop, eat beans on toast, watch telly—that’s all there is to me, really. I might want to be something else, something different, but that’s all there is.”

“No, that’s not true,” he said firmly. “You’ve got so much potential, Rose. You can do anything, go anywhere. You’re going to change lives and help people and save the universe.”

She smiled. “Grandiose much?”

“I’m serious, Rose. You can do everything you want. Anything you can dream of. You’ve just got to believe in yourself first.”

“…What if I need someone else to believe in me?”

“I do,” he said fervently. “Always have, always will.”

“Is that you talking, John, or your old soul?”

“Both, I think.”

“You’re awfully cute when you’re so serious, fez notwithstanding.”

“And you’re beautiful all the time.”

“I think I’m just going to _have_ to kiss you again for saying that.”

She’d just curled her hand around the back of his neck when his mobile began ringing madly. Amy must have reprogrammed the ringtone—it sounded suspiciously like Queens of the Stone Age. The Doctor had the urge to curse under his breath but managed to restrain himself. 

“Sorry, but I think I have to take this,” he said, the regret heavy and audible. “Yes, Mrs. Pond?”

“Um, Doctor, we’re in a bit of a sticky wicket.”

“Exactly how sticky?”

“About as sticky as a toddler with a bag of gummy bears and a runny nose.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, so if you could maybe, perhaps, just swing the TARDIS by and pick us up in a jiffy, we’d _really_ appreciate it.”

“Where are you exactly?”

“Exactly? Under a very small and unsteady table.” There was a loud and splintery crash in the background. “Did I mention there’s an alien destroying the restaurant around us? Because he just smashed another table to pieces.”

“A bit of a hurry up wouldn’t go amiss,” Rory hissed into the phone. 

“Gotcha. Be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. However long that is.” He snapped the phone shut and shoved it into his pocket. “I’m sorry, Rose, I am _really_ sorry, but I’ve gotta dash like a mad thing.”

“Sure thing,” she grinned. “Gotta go fix something important, I bet.”

“Something like that.”

“No time for a goodbye, then?”

And before he’d really thought it through—what with his mind already rushing back to the TARDIS, then on to the lunar base of the Shining Nebula and the pair that were waiting for him to save the day with a quick flick of his screwdriver and a witty jab—he’d grabbed Rose Tyler and kissed her breathless. 

“Goodbye, Rose Tyler.”

And he was running, as only the Doctor could, one hand holding his fez firmly in place while the other pulled the TARDIS key from the unfathomable depths of his pocket.

“But not forever, right, John Smith?” he heard her shout after him, her voice tinged with a laugh. “This better not be forever!”

_Oh no, Rose,_ he thought with an utterly barmy grin on his face. _I’d never say goodbye forever._


End file.
